Visions not Unratified 



darkened by the figure of a man. I sat up with my pistol 

 ready, but he passed by me, and, filling a large estera (mat- 

 ting) basket with straw, departed as he came. He had 

 doubtless been the applicant for straw, whom the friendly 

 mo%o had attempted to persuade not to disturb me, but who 

 had now found the ladder, and come to right himself against 

 such oppression. 



Falling asleep again, I dreamed I had been out on some 

 wild expedition in England, and had been brought back 

 quite helpless on a shutter ; that I had been put to bed, and 

 indeed the nurse was tucking me up, when, in stooping to 

 arrange the pillow, her sleeves tickled my nose, on which I 

 woke, and rubbing my nose, frightened away a rat who had 

 been snuffing round my face, probably suggesting the idea 

 of being tucked in. He scampered away, making a great 

 rustling among the loose straw, and I perceived the dark- 

 ness was growing pale, and that it wanted not above an 

 hour of sunrise. So I did not go to sleep again, and when 

 it was light enough to see, got up and shook myself. 



I paid a peseta (about I0;^d.) for my supper and night's 

 lodging. After about half a mile of road, I saw on the left 

 of the road some stony excrescences among the olive-trees, 

 towards which I turned up a slope of barley-field. The 

 irregular masses of grouting proved, as I approached, to be 

 undermined and perforated by arched cellars and passages. 

 Scrambling in among these ruins of Italica, I found, at 

 length, the amphitheatre, which is oval, and not near so 

 large as a modern bull-ring. 



On the side by which I entered, there were remains of a 

 broad passage, vaulted with a semicircular arch, which had 

 once surrounded the amphitheatre, into which there were 

 entrances from it very much like those of a pla-z^a de toros. 

 Here, no doubt, the Roman youth of the period loitered 



99 G 



